


rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet

by talia_ae



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talia_ae/pseuds/talia_ae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Switching things up: in which it's Eduardo who breaks up with Mark at the beginning of the movie instead of Erica.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet

**Author's Note:**

> This was a bit of a thought experiment. The title also makes me feel pretentious. Finally, this has negative opinions of MIT's campus. It's just so... austere. IDK, you guys, but there was nothing that made me want to go there.

"Mark," Eduardo had said, voice anguished and eyes wide, "Mark, this is-- dating you is like dating a Stairmaster, it's exhausting, I can't _do_ it anymore."  
  
He leans forward, clutching Mark's hands.  It's earnest and a little too forgiving and Mark can't stand it, wants to flex his fingers and push Eduardo off.  He doesn't.   "You need to understand, this isn't because-- I don't think you're an asshole , but it's just, it's everything, there's everything and I cannot _deal with you_."  
  
"Fine," Mark had said, "you-- fine," and he had gotten up and walked away from Eduardo and the bar full of spoiled rich Harvard kids, and took the T back to MIT.  
  
His dorm is a mid-century pile of concrete, nothing like Eduardo's dorm with its 330 years of history and U.S. presidents and radiators that inevitably bang and clank during the best parts of sex.  His room is cinder blocks with posters tacked up on the walls above the beds- _Jurassic_ _Park_ on Dustin's side, an old map of Cambridge of Mark's-- and particle-board desks holding several times their worth in computer equipment.  
  
He opens his laptop and types, fingers spinning and eyes blurring, _eduardo saverin is a bitch._  
  
Wardo thought he wasn't an asshole.  That was Mark's biggest lie, because he was, and he didn't want this nice Harvard boy with the poofy hair and kind eyes and beautiful hands to think so.  Secret's out, or it will be, he thinks, and leans to grab a beer from the minifridge. He'd left his drink on the table back in the bar.  
  
 _he's not that handsome anyways.  his eyes are ridiculous and he can't control his limbs.  and his dick, let's  not even go there.  ladies, whatever you'd previously overestimated, you're wrong-- and out of luck, because mr. mba doesn't always swing that way_.  
  
He drinks another beer, swigs it fast, cool liquid sliding down his throat, and keeps typing.  
  
 _as for the harvard thing, we all know where this is going: eddy joins a (full of rich assholes; surprise surprise) finals club and turns into a "gentleman of harvard" you see on the first T that runs in the morning, throwing up all the fun he had at last night's party._  
  
 _he always looks like a scared baby deer  
  
how is that attractive?  if you look at all the other harvard jackasses and compare him, how is eduardo fucking scared deer saverin considered a catch?_  
  
How.  
  
Mark doesn't know.  There isn't enough data.  
  
How.  
  
How hard would it be to hack into the Harvard network from MIT?  
  
 _Really_ , how hard could it be?  
  
Mark takes another beer, scowls at the laptop screen.  The lights in the room are dimmed and the glow is hurting his eyes, but--  
  
it would be easy.  The facebooks of each house.  It would be something he could have done in high school.  Tedious, maybe, depending on their levels of security, but he knows one of Eduardo's logins, and he knows could do it.  
  
There's a knock at the door.  He doesn't answer it.  
  
Another knock, and what sounds like a kick, then some muffled, muddled swearing.  "Mark Zuckerberg, you jerk, let me fucking in."  It's a girl's voice, low and angry, and Mark groans.  "I can hear your breathing, fucker.  Open the goddamn door or I will kick it down.  Or get another key from maintenance.  Don't think I won't do it because you would be _very wrong_."  
  
"Jesus, Erica."  Mark yanks the door open.  It scratches against the frame.  "What the hell is your problem?"  
  
"You, mostly," she says. leaning against the doorframe and crossing her arms.  Erica is probably the smartest girl in their class and wants to be an systems engineer or a mathematician.  She'd befriended Mark the first week before anyone realized that he wasn't that likable and that he ate way too much candy (and at MIT, that was an accomplishment--) and she's stuck with him since.  She has on jean cutoffs, even though it's bitterly cold outside, and a shirt that says _RTFM_.  He can see her bellybutton with the silver ring through it.  
  
He still can't believe that she took that dare.  
  
"Mark."  Erica pokes him in the ribs.  "You realize that other people can like, see your blog, right?  And that people here are weird and actually check it for updates?"  
  
"Yeah."  His eyes hurt, and he flips on the light.  "What are you doing here?"  
  
" _Mark_."  Erica groans.  
  
"Not right now," he says.  "Erica.  I need you, I need the algorithm.  The one you used to rank chess players?"  
  
"Because god forbid you take Advanced Theory of Algorithms with the rest of the little people," Erica grumbles, and makes her way inside, helping herself to a beer.  "Do I want to know what you're doing?"  
  
"No," Mark says, and hands her a dry-erase marker.  "No.  You don't."  
  
"That's worrying," she says, and uncaps the marker, looks around for clear space.  There is none, and she walks to the window, scrutinizing the glass panes with lidded eyes.  "I'm sorry about Eduardo, Mark."  
  
"Yeah, well."  He watches her write, round neat letters and numbers dancing their way across the windowpane.  "I'm not."  
  
Erica finishes writing and sighs.  She sinks onto his bed, eyes annoyed with disbelief.  "I don't believe you," she says.  
  
Mark shakes his head and begins to type, to create.  To code.


End file.
